If you’re an AI optimist, you believe one of two things: either you think, based on the American experience from the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, that millions of high-paying jobs in completely new fields will spring up to accommodate the unemployed; or you have faith that the now unimaginably wealthy class of capitalists will share their riches with the rest of us, either as a result of their natural benevolence or successful political action.
If you’re an AI pessimist, you believe neither thing. Based on our experience since 1980, you think the capitalist class has no interest in sharing its wealth, and the government is too hamstrung by gerrymandering, the filibuster, and the judicial system to force them to do so. Right-wing politicians will continue to use social issues to persuade red state voters to ignore their economic self-interest. In addition, AI is different than the inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries in that it makes both the brains and the bodies of workers replaceable, leaving nothing but feelings and animal passions, which have limited market value. By the time American workers figure out they are now living in a supercharged version of the dollar store economy–one that resembles feudalism more than the society of 1950–it will be too late to fix the problem.
I was born in the 1950s, not the 1850s, so, as you can imagine, I fall into the pessimist camp.